Whose in Charge Here? You, or your blog?

(Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes)

Do you own your blog, or does your blog own you?

Hold on… I’m not talking about whether you own your own domain, or whether you’re self-hosted or not.

Nope. This is a different question.

Consider the following:

• Are you driving your blog to where you want to go?
• Or has your blog developed a life of it’s own? (and you’re just along for the ride)

Philosoraptor, pwned by blogging

Here’s the funny thing: in the end, it doesn’t much matter… as long as you’re going in the right direction.

Let me explain…

Suppose you have your blog firmly in hand, and you’re executing well. Your strategy is working and you’re meeting your goals. Life is good.

On the other hand, perhaps your well-defined execution is taking you into a dead end. You feel guilty when you miss posting on your schedule. You’re starting to resent the time it’s taking to write articles. Commenting is getting tedious. Perhaps (you’re finding out) your vision sucked. Great execution on a sucky idea will only go so far.

Even worse, you’re not really in charge anymore. Your blog is in charge!

Life… could be better.

Now suppose your blog is attempting to “break free” and head off in a new direction. Maybe it already has. The key question is this:

Is the new direction better than the original?

If so, ride it.

If you’re not sure and current strategy is in tatters, consider riding the new direction anyway just to see where it goes.

Here’s the take home:

• If your blog is serving you, polish, refine, hone, sharpen, extend what you’re already doing. Whatever is working, keep doing more of that.
• If you’re serving your blog and it’s taking you in the right direction, loosen the reins and let it run. If it’s taking you into a dead end, change direction.

So whose in charge on your little corner of the internet, you, or your blog?

Tagged as: Blogging, Mastery